


Afterlife

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Force Ghosts, Ghost Sex, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-TLJ, Sex, Uncle/Nephew Incest, Undercover as a slave, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: It's been fourteen months since the day Luke died, but he won't stop coming back.





	Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thymesis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/gifts).



> To bear in mind: this is set in a canon-divergent AU where Leia and Luke's sibling relationship is just as much of a secret as Leia's relation to Vader.

The first time Ben kissed Luke, he was seventeen years old. 

He was drenched in sweat and out of breath and maybe close to delirious from the long walk in the beating Tatooine heat, and before they could get out of the sun and into the shade of a cantina, he just...kissed him, in a quiet street behind the bar. 

"You're too young for this, Ben," Luke said, and he tried to sound like he was steady, like it had no real, discernible effect on him, but Ben wasn't blind - he saw the look on his master's face, underneath the veneer of Jedi calm. He'd seen it before, once or twice, when Luke had thought he wasn't watching, so how many times did that mean he'd looked away and missed it?

They went inside and they ate and drank and they rented a couple of rooms for the night, one each, opposite doors across the hall. Ben thought about going into Luke's, considered it while he lay in bed, listening to the din from the bar below. 

He thought about kissing him again like he'd wanted to for months, maybe years, how he'd say _you only think I'm too young_ and _I know my own mind_ , and maybe Luke would find it harder to say no in the dark after the twin suns had set. But he stayed where he was. 

He could wait, he thought, till Luke's excuses weren't excuses anymore. In the meantime, he had his hands, and his imagination. 

\---

The second time Ben kissed Luke, he was nineteen years old. 

It wasn't really a conscious decision he'd made - he'd planned to leave it longer, like patience was something he ever had or thought to cultivate, so he'd have left it longer if he could. But they were away from the temple on a diplomatic mission issued by Ben's mother, and the unfamiliar planet they were visiting had unfamiliar customs. Hellos and goodbyes and all kinds of other social cues all called for kisses; the people there all carried special cloths to blot their lips before they put them to anybody else's, and they'd provided cloths to Ben and Luke. They were expected to participate. 

The information Ben read along the way said they had twenty different kinds of kisses, and those were just the basics of it. When they arrived, the government sent them a tutor, and Ben practiced with him while Luke watched them from across the room. Ben felt his cheeks burn, he felt his body react, but that wasn't a reaction to the kisses. It was to the way Luke looked at him. 

The first meeting went well; they both remembered their training and managed not to cause any kind of interplanetary incident, which at one point had seemed almost likely. And then, after the reception dinner, Ben excused himself to bed. He kissed all of the appropriate people in the appropriate way according to their rank, and then he turned to Luke. 

Luke didn't stop him. He could have stopped him and just said good night, and it likely wouldn't have been seen as making a diplomatic faux pas, at least not a serious one, but he didn't stop him. When Ben pressed his mouth to Luke's, Luke closed his eyes the way they'd been taught not to, just for a moment. Luke squeezed his hip, just for a moment. The look on his face as Ben stepped back was a perfect picture of what was in his mind, underneath his Jedi calm. What was in his mind was anything but that.

Ben went to bed, feeling like he'd won something. He lay awake in bed, teasing himself under the sheets till he gasped, with the look on Luke's face clear as day in his head. 

He was, he thought, at least one small step closer. 

\---

The third time Ben kissed Luke, he was twenty-one years old. 

He knew Luke had chosen him for the job to teach him some humility, and he understood exactly why that was - he was the best of Luke's students at the temple and he made it clear every day that he knew it. He didn't even mind the lesson, honestly, not in the start. He supposed he must have needed it. Back then, he still trusted Luke.

The slavers they were targeting - another of Ben's mother's tips - didn't have a clue who Luke Skywalker was, let alone his alias. Akanto Ren wore long, dark robes and carried a blaster holstered at each thigh. His slave, Ben, _Kylo Ren_ , followed two steps behind him everywhere he went. 

Under Ben's long cloak were black leather boots over a one-piece bodysuit that clung to his skin and fastened with a small but obvious maglock underneath his chin - Luke had the only device that would unlock it. Ben's long hair was scraped back severely from his face and pinned into a bun. When Luke took his cloak away inside the slavers' private meeting room and settled down in a plush armchair, when Ben knelt on the floor at his master's feet, he felt all eyes in the room on him. The slavers and the slaves all looked.

"Akanto Ren," the leader said. "I haven't heard your name before." 

"Credits can buy silence just as easily as slaves," Luke replied. 

The leader raised his brows. "In my experience, silence does not come cheaply," he said. 

Luke raised his chin a fraction. "I didn't say it did," he replied. 

The leader waved one hand and a slave appeared beside him, a tall blond human male with just a short cloth tied around his waist by way of clothing. He knelt on the floor between the slaver's feet; he quickly, efficiently, drew out his master's flaccid cock and stroked it, kissed it, while Ben tried not to stare. This was all meant to be familiar to him, after all.

"Will you join me?" the slaver asked Luke, with an offhand gesture in the direction of Ben.

"Is that necessary?" Luke asked. 

"Yes." He ran his heavy-ringed fingers through his slave's long hair. If Ben knew this was a challenge, a test of their identity and their resolve, then Luke absolutely had to, too. "In fact, I insist. Or you can leave, of course."

Luke looked at Ben. Ben looked at Luke. There was a second when he almost thought Luke would reach into his cloak for the lightsaber he had hidden there, that he'd give Ben his too, and their mission would end in the blue-green glow of their swords in the air, but he didn't reach for it. Ben moved before he could. He told himself he was keeping their cover. He told himself it was for the mission and nothing else.

He freed Luke's cock with hands far steadier than he'd imagined they would be, found him already half-hard when he exposed him and maybe, for a moment, he found that gratifying. He didn't look up at Luke's face as he leaned in, but he didn't hesitate - he sealed his lips around the head of Luke's thick cock and he sucked, slowly, his tongue teasing languid circles at the tip. He tried not to let his nerves show. After all, he was meant to be Luke's slave; this should have all been second nature.

Luke's gloved metal hand went to the back of Ben's neck, to the base of his skull where his hair was tied. Luke eased him down a little lower. He took more. He took _more_ , his own initiative by that point, fighting off the urge to gag with tears in his eyes and Luke's cock in his throat. He swallowed. Luke's hips shifted. Luke's breath hitched. Ben pulled back to the head, sucked, bobbed, twisted, gripped tight at Luke's clothed thighs, kept going, _kept going_ , till Luke's cock pulsed hard as he came in his mouth, bitter and thick. 

He swallowed. He pulled back. He dutifully tucked Luke away, covered him up and then moved aside, beside him on his knees again. His own cock was hard inside his skin-tight suit, leaking awkwardly into the fabric. The slaver saw. He smiled, apparently convinced by what he saw. 

"Better," he said. "I find negotiations run so much more smoothly when all parties start off pleased." 

Luke agreed. They conducted their business. And that night, they slipped their guards and transmitted every detail of the slavers' operations direct from their database to the senate on Hosnian. Then they boarded their ship and they left it all behind. They went home, back to the temple, but all Ben could think about was what else they might have done, if they'd had to, to convince the slaver they were serious. 

All he could think about was how far they might have gone. He wondered if Luke would have unsealed the maglock and stripped him down to his bare skin in front of everyone. He wondered if he would have pushed him down onto his hands and knees. He wondered if he would have fucked him while the slavers and their slaves all watched, pushed his face down to the floor and come inside him. He tried not to think about it, but he couldn't not.

They didn't speak a word about it along the way, but Ben didn't exactly expect them to. When they landed, he just pressed his mouth to Luke's and then he walked away. 

He came on his knees in his room, in the dark. He came with his hand wrapped around himself, thinking about Luke's cock in his mouth, thinking about what else they might have done.

Luke always saw his missions through. Ben thought he would have done it. He almost regretted that they hadn't had to.

\---

The fourth time Ben kissed Luke, he was twenty-three. 

They were in the temple courtyard after dark, turning out the lights after a hard hour of lightsaber sparring; they still hadn't mentioned that mission, not even once, not outside the very general terms in which they discussed it with Ben's mother, and it frustrated him so muchright then that he could've screamed. He couldn't have said why it chose that moment to bubble up in him, just that it did - what he did instead of screaming was reignite his blade once the lights were all out, and then they were fighting again. 

Luke was usually so calm when he fought, but he wasn't calm then. It was like he felt what Ben felt, felt his anger, his frustration, and he pushed it all straight back at him tenfold - the look on his face in the saber-light was tight and dark and on the brink of dangerous, but all that did was spur Ben on. 

They fought. Ben was good but Luke was better and in the end he pushed him down onto the dusty flagstones with the Force. Ben lay there, scowling, flushed and breathless; Luke put away his saber and held out his hand to Ben. He took it. He let Luke pull him up, leaving his lightsaber glowing in the dirt where it had fallen. He curled his fingers tight into the front of Luke's rough tunic. He hauled him close. Maybe Luke was stronger in the Force, but Ben had had the edge over him physically for years. 

He kissed him. Ben crushed their mouths together, hotly, angrily, and in the start Luke just let him do it. He stood there, seeming just as calm and as impassive as he always did just on the surface, and maybe Ben was too angry then to feel what was simmering down underneath, but a moment later, after the start, he didn't have to guess. Luke's hand, the warm one, skin and bone, tangled up into his hair. Luke kissed him back, just as hard, just as desperate, almost painful, but something in Ben soared. But then Luke pulled back, suddenly. He stepped back, staggered back, almost fell back. He didn't look calm. He looked appalled. 

"We can't do this," he said. 

"You mean _you_ can't," Ben replied. "I can. I'm not a child. I know what I want." 

"I mean _we_ can't." Luke frowned. Luke winced. " _We_ can't do this. I'm your uncle, Ben. We can't." 

Ben smiled acerbically, almost sneering, his hands resting at his hips. "You're my uncle like Uncle Lando and Uncle Chewie," he pointed out. "We're not family. What does it matter?"

Luke's hands balled into fists down at his sides. His frown deepened till it was almost a scowl and then he reached out and called Ben's saber to him with the Force. It lit up his face in a bright, stark blue.

"I'm your mother's brother," he said, enunciating the words he said carefully, like he wanted to make absolutely sure that he was heard. 

"Metaphorically?"

"Literally." He sighed. "We're twins, Ben. We grew up apart and she made me swear to keep the secret, but it's true. I'm your uncle. We should have told you years ago. _I_ should have." He shook his head. "We can't do this." 

They stood there in the chilly air, in the lightsaber's glow, in silence except for the hum of the blade. Maybe Luke expected him to lash out and hit him, and maybe he would have let him do it. Maybe he'd've let him beat him to the ground because maybe he thought he deserved it for keeping a secret like that from him for all those years. Maybe he expected him to yell at him at the very least, to call him names that would've mostly been true. He didn't. 

Ben smiled, a bitter twist around the edges. He stepped close, and he reached out and took his lightsaber back. Luke could only have looked more shaken if the blade had turned bright red the second he made contact with it. 

"I knew," Ben said. "I always knew. Did you think I wouldn't feel it in the Force?"

Then he turned and walked away. 

Three weeks later, he woke in the night with Luke standing over him, his saber lit. Now, he wonders what might have happened if he'd just taken a moment to let Luke explain. 

Maybe Kylo Ren would still be Ben and Luke wouldn't have had to die. 

_Maybe_. 

\---

It's been fourteen months since Crait. It's been fourteen months since the day Luke died, but only six since the day Luke first kissed him. 

Kylo had expected it to take more time, but Luke found his way back within a week. He was faint at first, a shimmer in the air behind him, just around the corner that was always gone when he turned around, and he was half convinced he was losing his mind because of it. But then the light shone brighter, still thin but Kylo ran the last few paces, turned the corner, and there was Luke. 

The first few times, he faded after a moment and was gone again. For a while after that, he lingered longer, but the light of him was so weak and thin that he was barely there. Sometimes his mouth moved as if he was trying to speak, as if he was trying to shout, as if he'd've been screaming till his throat was raw if he'd still been alive. But he couldn't hear him. 

He started to ignore him. Luke was everywhere he went, like a misty shadow, like a cloud that passed through people and passed through walls and doors, completely insubstantial, so he was easy to ignore, at least part of the time. When he tried to sleep at the end of the day, the thin glow was like an unintentional, unwanted night light. Night, in his room, was when Luke's presence felt the strongest. He knew he was there. He knew it in his body as well as his mind, the way his skin flushed, the way he couldn't settle. At night, he couldn't ignore him. 

The night it happened, he'd barely slept in months. He was exhausted, irritable, irascible, tossing and turning in the pale light that he couldn't turn out. He threw back the sheets. He sat up on the edge of the bed, his feet to the floor, leaning forearms to knees. He looked at him. 

"Why won't you leave me alone?" he asked, his nails pressed hard into his palms. 

He didn't expect to hear an answer; he didn't hear one. Luke just sat there in the chair across the room, looking at him. He looked as tired as Kylo felt, and he mouthed the words, _I can't_.

Kylo dropped his head into his hands and laughed out loud. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled at it as if the sharp jolt of pain would help somehow, but unsurprisingly it didn't. He rubbed his face with his palms. His skin crawled. His teeth were on edge. He was angry and hurt, he'd lost his patience and he'd lost his head. He took a sharp breath and almost shouted it back out in hot exasperation. 

He'd thought there had to be something he could do to make this better, but nothing had come to mind in months. He guessed if there wasn't, maybe all he could do was make it worse. 

He pushed forward. He went down to his knees on the floor and he crawled, he _crawled_ , over to where Luke was sitting, on his hands and knees. He sat up on his heels, his knees spread out wide; he was already shirtless and Luke's eyes were already wide, and he ran one hand down over his abdomen, over the waistband of his pants, over the fabric that was stretched out tight between his thighs. 

Luke couldn't speak so he couldn't tell him no like he always had before, when he'd been living. Honestly, he didn't look much like he wanted to, not anymore.

Kylo shifted. He lifted his hips and he shoved the pants he'd been attempting to sleep in right down to his knees, exposing himself in Luke's ghost's dim light. The way Luke was looking at him, it didn't take long for him to stroke himself hard. The way Luke was looking at him made his skin hot in spite of the chill in the air. It made his chest tight. 

Luke's wide eyes were on Kylo's hands as he cupped his balls and squeezed them tight, as he stroked himself, as he made his own hips shift in time. Luke's eyes were on him as his thighs strained, as his back arched, as his breath hitched, as his hips bucked up. Luke's eyes were on him as he came, as he emptied himself onto the floor at Luke's feet with an echoing groan. Kylo ran his hands over his inner thighs as his cock began to soften. He raked there with his blunt nails. Luke watched that, too. 

Luke moved. Luke stood and he swept back his cloak and he knelt on the floor right in front of him, and that was when it happened. He flickered out and he was gone again and all Kylo could do was laugh because of course, _of course_ he was gone. But then he felt it, he saw it, the flash of light in the room bright even inside his eyelids. He looked up and Luke was there, fucking incandescent, so bright it almost hurt to look. 

Luke rested his forehead down heavy against Kylo's. Luke's hands closed on his upper arms - one traveled down to his wrist and one up to the back of his neck. Kylo shivered, hating himself for it, hating Luke for it, as he took a shivering breath. He hadn't expected Luke to touch. He hadn't expected to want it.

"Ben," Luke said, and then he kissed him, mouth to mouth, Luke's hands on his bare skin. 

Then he was gone again, and Kylo tore the room apart because of it. 

But then, he slept. For the first time in months, he really did. 

\---

The second time Luke kissed him was the next night. The third time was the night after that. 

The fourth time, Kylo hit him, an open-handed slap across the face, and for a second after that Luke almost looked like he thought he deserved it. Then he looked at him, brows raised, like he'd changed his mind. 

"I'm already dead, Ben," Luke said. "What else do you think you can do to me?" Then he narrowed his eyes and said, "Do you want me to stop?"

The simple truth was that he didn't, reluctant as he was to say so, so he shook his head tightly and he didn't say a word. That seemed to be enough.

Luke undressed him. Kylo was still fully dressed so Luke took it all off him, piece by piece, layer by layer, till he was standing there naked in the darkened room. Then Luke's hands moved over him, his real hand and his metal hand that couldn't really be metal at all, looking just the way it had when he'd died so the sharp edges he'd worn smooth over the years didn't catch at his skin, they just made him shiver. Luke wrapped that hand around Kylo's cock, carefully, slowly, like the metal on his skin might be less intimate than skin somehow. It really wasn't. It was maybe even worse. He could tell Luke knew that, too. 

Luke pushed him down on the bed and Kylo let him. Luke heaved off his cloak and it disappeared into the air as it fell down; all his clothes did the same as he undressed himself, as he stripped himself bare, then he knelt between Kylo's thighs. He rested his hands at Kylo's hips. He ducked his head and licked a long, slow line over the underside of Kylo's hard cock, from base to tip, utterly unexpected. He sucked hard just underneath the head, then he sat back up again. Kylo groaned - he couldn't help himself - and he handed him the lubricant, his cheeks flushed hot. Luke didn't look any more level-headed than Kylo felt. 

The sex was slow. He'd expected it to be rough and hard and fuelled by anger - it was hard and angry, yes, but it wasn't rough. Luke caught one of Kylo's calves up over his shoulder, his metal hand around his ankle, and he rubbed two fingers flat against his hole. He pushed the middle one in past the tight rim, straight up to the knuckle, fucked him with it till he pushed in with a second slick finger, too. 

Kylo gripped tight at the headboard. He used his calf over Luke's shoulder for leverage to push against his hand, the motion shameless though he did feel ashamed. He told himself he hated Luke and this shouldn't have been happening. His cock, hard and leaking up against his abdomen, said he wanted it in spite of himself. 

Luke pulled his fingers back. Luke lined up his cock with Kylo's hole. He pushed against it, not even trying to get inside him in the start, just teasing with the tip, rubbing against the rim like he wasn't sure he was even going to go through with it. Kylo groaned out loud in frustration, one hand going down to wrap tight around his own straining cock, and he looked up at the bright but still translucent form of Luke just as he shifted forward with his hips. He was looking Luke in the eye when he penetrated him, when he pushed inside, slow but somehow now certain. He didn't still again till he was in him, shoved right up to the hilt. 

Except that wasn't as deep as Luke could go. Kylo's breath caught as Luke's hips shifted, as he moved in him, the long, thick length of him pushing him wide open. As Luke fucked him, as Kylo squeezed his own cock to keep from coming of the feel of it, he could feel Luke pushing deeper - his insubstantial hips thrust against Kylo, thrust _into_ him, the hard length of his cock pushing deeper inside. Luke's slick fingers teased the rim of his hole as he fucked him. Kylo bit his lip. He groaned. In spite of himself, and all he did to stop himself, he jerked and came. 

Luke wasn't far behind. Kylo could almost have come again at the agonised sound Luke made when he did. 

Afterwards, when Luke had pulled back out, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to Kylo's. Kylo held him down against him, his fingers curling into claws there at Luke's back, his thighs framing Luke's hips. 

"You tried to kill me," Kylo said. 

Luke smiled wryly. "It's ironic," he replied. "What you're doing now is what I wanted to prevent." 

Then he was gone again. And Kylo was left trying not to wonder what might have been if Luke had known for sure what he'd become. 

\---

It's been fourteen months since Crait and six since the day Luke first kissed him. He's not sure what other sort of milestone could possibly come next. 

They argue sometimes, in his room at night; Luke calls him Ben and he says _Kylo_ , or Luke tells him about the things his father, Kylo's grandfather, did that he regretted in the end. Kylo says he doesn't believe that Vader changed because he's seen no evidence to prove it, no one has, Snoke never told him so, and Luke rolls his eyes and says there are a lot of things Snoke never said. Snoke was never honest. Kylo says Luke ought to know - he kept secrets of his own. 

In the end, though, Kylo thinks it doesn't matter what he thinks, if he believes Luke or not, if Vader had a change of heart or didn't. He's on this path now, and he's not straying from it. The way Luke looks at him, he knows he knows that, too. He doesn't try to persuade him otherwise. But he, Ben, _Kylo_ , does still find himself wondering what might have been. 

Luke's in his room tonight. They don't always make it to the bed - some nights Luke pushes him up against the door and they kiss, hard, fumbling against each other like it's their very last chance, like Luke's not already dead and Kylo Ren's First Order doesn't control half the galaxy. Sometimes Luke sits him down in the chair and goes down on his knees and teases with his tongue till his orgasm could almost knock him out. Sometimes he has him on his knees on the floor, the tiles scraping his palms and the toes of his boots. And Kylo, _Ben_ , wonders what else could have been. 

Luke's in his room tonight and the light of him's so bright it hurts to look at him directly. Luke rests his forehead against his. He holds him tight, bare skin on skin. 

"If you had to do it all again, would you kill me?" Kylo asks, his heart beating hard inside him. 

Luke moves, brushes Kylo's cheekbone with his lips, presses his mouth up to his neck. 

"Yes," he says, against his skin. "If I'd given in, you'd've taken me down with you." 

"And now?"

"I'm dead, Ben. Light and dark don't matter very much."

Kylo's not sure, but he thinks Luke's lying. 

Maybe when he's done what he's set out to do, Luke will be proud when he sees it. Or maybe the ghost of Luke Skywalker will put a knife in his heart before he can. 

If Luke weren't already dead, Kylo Ren would kill him now without a second's hesitation. 

But, he knows Ben Solo would grieve.


End file.
